Building on Lyal's last post on honesty in search engine optimization, I'd like to refer to a fantastic post written by Mike Tek. He offers two alternatives to pitching clients on search marketing, the first being the ethical route and the latter the opposite:

A) "We don't guarantee rankings because we don't control the search engines and, furthermore, rankings aren't where the value is. Building targeted traffic to your website is far more important."

To the uninitiated, five-hundred number one ranks may sound more enticing than building targeted traffic, and sadly, this is the route many take. These sites may be able to deliver on the promised 500 keywords, but will people looking for these keywords buy your product? Are these the people you need to be speaking to? What happens after the 500? What does 500 number one rankings really mean for my business? In many cases, not a whole lot.

Number one isn't everything. Vancouver thrives on small business because of niches. The internet is no different. A handful of hyper-targeted, well-researched phrases will outperform a thousand sloppy phrases anyday.

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